Wes Lang
Over the last several decades, artist Wes Lang has been honing his craft involving, amongst other things, a tireless, obsessive mining of a post-pop American landscape. Many of the artist's influences are a function of a distinct autobiographical experience with certain exceptions; the indigenous American as well as other totems of the American West, and painters and sculptors from middle of last century such as Twombly, Guston, Kline, Mitchell and Bacon, dove-tailing on up to the more contemporary ones such as Basquiat, Kippenberger, and Mike Kelley.
To date, Lang has made his mark primarily on canvas and paper. He is known for creating surfaces that sizzle; bombastic mélanges often brimming with elegantly rendered, still rough-around-the-edges imagery of grim reapers, Native American chieftains, fallen country music icons, sultry seductresses, long lost folk legends, dead authors, motorcycles, roses and other flora, birds, horses, all of which jockey for prominence within compositions sewn together and resolved by cryptic scrawls with a bittersweet vernacular resonating of Ram Dass and the Tao by way of the edge of the universe.
Born in 1972 Chatham, NJ
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
This Simple Path, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Pink and Blue, Almine Rech, New York, USA
2021
ENDLESS HORIZONS, Almine Rech, Aspen
Healing of a Nation, One Trick Pony Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2020
Wes Lang, Almine Rech, Paris, France
2019
Taking Off For Other Dimensions, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark
2016
The Believer, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark
2015
The Longest Night of the Year, Milk Studios Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2014
Wes Lang – The Studio, ARoS Museum of Art, Aarhus, Denmark
2013
Blessings, Half Gallery, New York, US
Blue Dream, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2012
69, IKON Ltd, Santa Monica, California, USA
Here Comes Sunshine, Half Gallery, New York, USA
2011
Sittin’ On A Rainbow, Chateau Marmont, Hollywood, California, USA
Life and How To Live It, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2010
Smile, It´s A Grey Day, Ziehersmith New York, USA
2009
Going All The Way For The U.S.A., V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Carry On, two person show with Ryan Schneider, Eighth Veil, Los Angeles, USA
Just Landed, two person show with Eddie Martinez, Alice Day, Brussels, Belgium
2008
Are You Ready For the Country? ZieherSmith, New York, USA
2006
Skulls and Shit, collaboration with Donald Baechler, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
2005
The Promised Land, ZieherSmith, New York, USA
I Shall Be Released, Bucket Rider, Chicago, USA
American Beauty, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
2004
Night of 100 Covers, Loyal Release, Passerby/Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York, USA
Night of 100 Covers, Loyal Release, Gallery Milliken, Stockholm, Sweden
Home At Last, ZieherSmith, New York, USA
2003
Self-portraits as a Handsome Young Man, RARE Gallery, New York, USA
2002
Wes Lang: New Works on Paper, GV/AS Gallery, Brooklyn, USA
2001
Bras, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, catalogue with essay by Edward Albee
2000
Blacks & Whites, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, USA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
V1 XX - Twenty years of V1 Gallery, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2021
Salon de Peinture, Almine Rech, New York, USA
Un Hiver à Paris, Almine Rech, Paris, France
2020
Vampires – The evolution of the Myth, Caixa Forum, Fundación Bancaria, Madrid, Spain
MINE IV, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2019
Vampires, La Cinémathèque Française – Musée du Cinema, Paris, France
MINE III, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Birds, CHART Art Fair with V1 Gallery, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark
2018
No Man is an Island – The Satanic Verses, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark
2017
Horses, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2016
13, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2014
CHART Art Fair, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark
Tattoo – Contemporary Art and Tattoo Culture, Brandt Museum of Art, Odense, Denmark
2013
Purple Diary, Wes Lang & André Saraiva, Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles, USA
2012
Tonight We Won’t Be Bored – Ten Years of V1 Gallery, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen
Market Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden
Underværker – Mesterværker fra danske privatsamlinger, Kunsten, Aalborg, Denmark
2011
What’s He Building in There?, curated by Jesper Elg and Mikkel Grønnebæk, Fuse Gallery, New York, USA
Status – Somewhere Between Position and Condition, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Con Amore: Leif Djurhuus Collection, Museum of Modern Art, Aarhus, Denmark
2010
Stars Above / Valley Below, Horton Gallery, New York, USA
Lush Life 3 First Bird (A Few Butterflies), curated by Franklin Evans & Omar Lopez-Chahoud, Invisible Exports, New York, USA
Big Picture, curated by Ryan Schneider, Priska Juschka Fine Art, New York, USA
Draw, curated by Erik Foss and Curse Mackey, Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
Public Image, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland
2009
Grand Reopening, ZieherSmith, New York, US
Carry On, two person show with Ryan Schneider, Eighth Veil, Los Angeles, US
Just Landed, two person show with Eddie Martinez, aliceday, Brussels, Belgium
What So Proudly We Hail, Holster Projects, London, UK
2008
Destruction of Atlantis, curated by Jesper Elg, Union Gallery, London, UK
Everything Else, curated by Chris Churchill, Franklin Parrasch Gallery,
New York, USA
Timeless, Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey, USA
The Boys Are Back In Town, V1 Gallery, Copenhagan, USA
The Boys Are Back In Town, Romo Gallery, Atlanta, USA
Brevity’s Rainbow, Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn, USA
2007
Mail Order Monsters, curated by Kathy Grayson, Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany
Collector’s Choice, Dealim Contemporary Art Museum, Seoul, Korea
True Faith, Greenberg Van Doren, New York, USA
Dark Victory, curated by Dimitrios Antonitsis, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre, Athens, Greece
Five Painters, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
2006
10 Curatorial Perspectives, curated by Wayne Northcross, Haven Arts, Bronx,
New York, USA
You have to be almost gifted to do what I do, Alexander and Bonin, New York, USA
Panic Room – Works from The Dakis Joannou Collection, curated by Kathy Grayson and Jeffrey Deitch, Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece
Natural History Museum, The Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, New York, USA
Don’t Abandon The Ship, Allston Skirt, Boston, USA
2005
Words: The Formal Presence of Text in Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Andrea Rosen, New York, USA
Loyal and his Band, Gallerie Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
Working Artists in Brooklyn, Romo Gallery, Atlanta, USA
Petits formats ou miniatures, Galerie Quang, Paris, France
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Gallerie Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
2004
The Hunt For Your Family, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Odd Number, Stockholm, Sweden
2003
New York Dirt, Claska Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Stream, Rare Gallery, New York, USA
Benefit, White Columns Gallery, New York, USA
2002
Waar, Andrew Andrew Curatorial Services, New York, USA
What’s New Pussycat?, Briggs Robinson Gallery, New York, USA
She’s Crafty… and So Is He Sometimes, White Columns Gallery, New York, USA
T & A, GV/AS Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA
2001
Paper, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, USA
OIL, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, USA
2000
Hello My Name Is, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, USA
Meat Market, Mark Pasek Gallery, New York, USA
1999
Under Scrutiny, Limner Gallery, New York, USA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Let The Day Begin, V1 Gallery, 2019
Because I Have Little Wisdom, V1 Gallery, 2018
The Studio, Wes Lang, ARoS Press, 2014
Wes Lang, PictureBox, 2013
Skulls And Shit: Donald Baechler & Wes Lang, New York, Ajax Press, 2010
SELECTED AWARDS
Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency, Montauk, New York, 2001
OVERALL: 232 X 268 CM
OVERALL: 232 X 268 CM
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